ELK HUNTING 



line, and what seemed a fair burst of music followed. 

 Suddenly all sound ceased. 



Getting down on to the new road to Non Pareil we met 

 one of the dog boys, who said he had heard a hound struck 

 by a leopard, and indicating the direction where we had 

 last heard tongue. On the road itself were very fresh 

 scratchings of a large leopard. I had two couple of new 

 hounds out that morning, which I had secured to replace 

 recent losses. They were Flatterer, Statesman, Wanderer, 

 and Jolliment, and four grand young hounds they were as 

 they played around me on my way to cover. Getting no 

 further information from the dog boy, we made the best of 

 our way to Chimney Hill, and thence along the World's 

 End Road. 



Here we met some of the field, who reported having 

 seen Sandy and Mischief bolting in terror from some unseen 

 foe, and that Mischief was wounded and bleeding. Noting 

 the direction whence these hounds were reported to have 

 come, I took an old game path leading from the road to 

 the Tappa-Collum patna in search of the pack. Boun- 

 tiful, Warfare, and Bashful had been picked up and sent 

 home with Sandy and Mischief, but the rest of the pack 

 were missing. An ominous silence pervaded the sodden 

 jungles, and not a whimper of hound could be heard any- 

 where. The wind had dropped, but the mist lay thick in 

 the flat swampy forest through which in single file we 

 threaded our way. Suddenly, beyond a bush in front of 

 me as I led with my gun in hand, I heard a buzzing of flies. 



Stepping cautiously forward, I found at my feet poor 

 Wanderer, one of the handsomest young hounds I ever 

 possessed, stone dead, with his neck broken and hardly a 

 scratch upon him. A few yards farther along the game 

 track lay Flatterer, with a piece eaten out of his side, so 



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